


where have the times gone (baby, it's all wrong)

by matskreider



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Touch Starved, Dom Juuse, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, sub pekka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 10:19:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12768954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matskreider/pseuds/matskreider
Summary: The thing about call-ups is that they can be make or break for an NHL career. They are the metaphorical hand reaching down saying, “Hey kid. Show us what you can do.” They give a taste of what’s to come, and that taste is enough to motivate, to make one want to perform their absolute best.The other thing about call-ups is that they have to take place at the expense of someone else.(juuse gets sent down; this is how they deal with it in the immediate aftermath)





	where have the times gone (baby, it's all wrong)

**Author's Note:**

> this was requested by an anon on tumblr and once again it got too long for me to post on tumblr so...here we are. hope you enjoy!
> 
> once again, this takes place in my deficient & determined au, which you can check out from the beginning right [here](https://eddieluongo.tumblr.com/tagged/au%3A-deficient-%26-determined/chrono)

The thing about call-ups is that they can be make or break for an NHL career. They are the metaphorical hand reaching down saying, “Hey kid. Show us what you can do.” They give a taste of what’s to come, and that taste is enough to motivate, to make one want to perform their absolute best.

The other thing about call-ups is that they have to take place at the expense of someone else. Juuse remembers his own; a ton of guys had gotten food poisoning from chicken soup, and he’d gotten his first start from that. He lost, but still.

A year later, he’s on a Stanley Cup competing team. He’s playing in playoff games, and plays in the final series, against the Penguins. Selfishly, he’s glad he wasn’t in for the actual final. Selfishly, he’s glad he also wasn’t in for the sweep of the Blackhawks, because as devastating as it is when Pekka can’t execute his job properly, it’s _so_ hot when he can. So they lost, but still.

And now he’s trying to start his second full season with them and he’s losing. His record is 1-3-0 and he knows, he _knows_ that it’s coming. But he’s walking into the locker room in Minnesota when he gets pulled aside by Ben who gives him a sympathetic look. Juuse can’t say he’s shocked, but he can stutter through a thank you, as he’s given a plane ticket and urged back out the door.

Time is of the essence, and Anders is probably already en route. Besides, the Admirals have a game tonight. It’s not the game Juuse wants to be playing in, but then again he doesn’t even know if he’s going to be between the pipes. Not like it’s his call anyway.

At the hotel, he tries not to shake as he packs up his bags, having strewn things around the room to make it look lived in before he went over to Pekka’s. He’s fast, but he hesitates, standing in the hallway and looking four doors down, to where he’d spent the night. He still feels the ghost of Pekka’s hand between his shoulder blades, and he makes his way over to the door. The note that says “do not disturb” hangs from the doorknob, and as Juuse opens the door, he remembers exactly why.

The extra soft blankets he’d convinced Pekka to pack, the soft lined collar they’d put on the bedside table, the little bags of snacks they’d packed that were labeled with “ST. PAUL” in Juuse’s block handwriting. They usually planned them out per city for the road trip, and even though this was a one and done, Pekka had still asked for it to be labeled. He’d agreed, as they’d packed it all, tucked away in a black bag, easily hidden from view in their travel bags.

He doesn’t have time for a long letter to be written, he knows there’s going to be a cab waiting for him. But he neatly packs everything up, leaving the collar on the pillow he’d used, and sets to writing in on the hotel stationary.

_Business as usual, sweetheart. Keep your chin up and give me a call when you can. I want to hear your voice. I packed the stuff up for you, and this won’t last forever. Love you endlessly._

_< 3 Juuse_

Pekka’s going to be fine, he tries to convince himself. He’s going to handle himself in this moment, and when Juuse gets his call up again, they’ll be back together again. There’s no reason to be morose about it.

Or so he tells himself as he gets in the cab waiting for him out front of the hotel. He makes his flight, and by the time he lands, the articles have already been posted, Twitter has been updated, and he’s back in a cab again, on his way to the rink.

He never thought he looked good in blue.

* * *

When he gets out of morning skate and a lengthy meeting with the coaching staff, he finally checks his phone. There’s 7 missed calls, including one from his mother, and a handful of unread texts. Among them, Roman, PK, and Miikka, with varying levels of comfort and well wishes. The rest of the calls are from Pekka, and upon checking the time Juuse’s unsure if he should respond.

Pekka would have started his pregame routine by now, but at the same time, Juuse was such an integral part of it that he’s not sure if he would even be able to do it. So he waits until he’s given the news that he’s going to be sharing a room with someone, gets the room key, and goes in only to leave and duck into a conference room. Pressing re-dial, he hugs the phone to his ear, waiting for the call to connect.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

“Juuse.” Pekka’s voice is soft and tense, but he’s not yet shaking apart, and that leads Juuse to ask his next question.

“Hi, Daddy,” he says softly. “Are you alone right now?”

There’s a small sigh, and the sound of shifting sheets. “No.”

“Who’s with you?”

“I got Roman with me.”

Juuse feels a sense of relief bloom in his chest, and he relaxes a little bit against the back of the office chair he’s in. “That’s good, I’m glad you have someone. How are you feeling?”

There’s a moment of silence, just white noise from the connection. He can hear Roman’s urging him to answer, and then there’s a small voice whispering, “Miss you,” into the receiver.

“I miss you too, babe. But I should be back soon, depending on how I do here. A month, probably, maybe a little longer. And there’s no back to backs, so you’ll have a little bit of breathing room. And you know you can always call me.”

Pekka hums his agreement, and Juuse waits a little bit, before tentatively asking, “Color?”

“Yellow.”

It’s better than Juuse was expecting, to be honest. Pekka didn’t like change, but he had to roll with the punches in the life that they both led. Injuries, trades, recalls and send downs, it all complicates an already complicated lifestyle. He’d been a part of the League for much longer than Juuse had, and Juuse would be the first to admit that he’s still a little wet behind the ears. But such a sudden change, like Juuse being taken out of the rink before he even gets to do morning skate, is almost unprecedented.

There’s always cases like Duchene, but Juuse wasn’t going to entertain that idea.

“Is it just that you miss me, or are you not physically feeling good?” he asks, picking at the rip on his jeans.

“I miss you, and it’s cold in here without you.”

Juuse makes a low soothing noise, a sympathetic coo if anything, and he hears the sentiment echoed from Roman. “Is Roman helping at all?”

Another hum of agreement.

“Are you going to try to get some sleep?”

“Mmhmm. But I…”

Juuse patiently waits him out, wishing that he could be there to run his fingers through his hair, to trace little circles along the cut of his jaw, to settle him down and coax an answer out of him. But he’s over 700 miles away, and he can only hope that Roman fills in the gaps of what he cannot provide.

Juuse’s phone vibrates, and he pulls it away from his ear to look at the alarm on his screen. He needs to start getting some sleep for the game, but this is more important. Hockey won’t always be there, but Pekka could be even more fragile than the ice they skated on. So Juuse silences the alarm and goes back to the conversation.

“I…need…need you to… _come back,_ ” Pekka explains, his voice starting to tremble a little. “It’s hard, without you.”

Juuse shushes him gently, chattering to him in meaningless Finnish for a moment. “I know you hate roadies regardless,” he murmurs. “But I’ll be back home before you know it, and everything will work out okay.”

“Promise?”

He sounds so small on the phone, and Juuse feels an ache starting up in his chest, one that he can only assume Pekka has had to live with for much longer than he was comfortable talking about. “I promise, sweetheart.”

At those words, he hears Pekka let out a shaky sigh, and then a small whine.

“What’s wrong, baby?” The endearment rolls out before Juuse could preface it, and he bites his tongue.

But Pekka doesn’t seem to notice just yet, and answers, “Roman wants to talk to you.”

“If you don’t want him to, he doesn’t have to.” Better to give him an out now, than to pin him into a decision. But Pekka thinks better of it, and hands the phone over to Roman, judging by the muffled talking, before Roman’s voice takes over.

“I’m sorry that they didn’t tell you until today, but if it was a home game they might have let you know a little bit ahead of time. Do you know if you’re playing tonight?”

Juuse shakes his head, before remembering that his captain can’t see him. “I’m not sure yet. I don’t want to say yes, in case it’s not true. Getting hopes up for nothing, right?”

Roman hums, and Juuse digs his finger a little bit further into the hole in his jeans. “Who told him?”

“I did,” Roman says. “He asked me during warm ups and I told him after practice. He handled it…okay.”

Juuse could believe that. Media training helped, a little bit, and it was certainly possible that Pekka would be asked about how he felt for their chances tonight, given the win streak they were on that was entirely because of him. With that said, though, Juuse knew that Pekka wasn’t exactly keen on advertising the ways he was hurting. Hence why it took so long to even get him to open up about what he did need.

“Okay, well. If he needs anything, you know how to get ahold of me. There’s, um, sort of a breakdown of a schedule back at…at home. He can show you where it is, but mostly just don’t let him be alone for the next couple of days, especially on off days.”

“Got it. We’ll take good care of him, and we’ll be looking for you to keep it going out there in Milwaukee, yeah?”

Juuse rolls his lips as he forces himself to hum an affirmative, before asking in a low voice, “I’m sorry if this is messing with your own schedule, but thank you for helping with this.”

“Hey, I’m the captain now. Making sure my team is doing okay is part of the territory. Especially goalies.” There’s a smile in his voice, but then he clears his throat a little bit and presses on. “But, um. I’m sorry that we did this to you. You’ve got a bright future, Juice, and I’m sorry that we didn’t perform for you.”

A little bit of the resentment that had been sitting in Juuse’s chest starts to loosen. Losses are always tricky for goalies, because how much of that is a personal flaw and how much of it can be attributed to the five guys skating in front of you? And with three of them under his belt, all of them his own starts, he’s not really looking forward to tonight. It’s been a while since he was down here anyway, and he’s not sure how he’s going to perform.

There’s a lot of insecurities, and he knows that’s why he was sent down here in the first place. He might be young but he can be an adult, it’s not his first time trying to reconcile being told he has a bright future and being sent back down, and he knows that it’s _not a bad thing._

He has a hard time believing that when he can hear Pekka sniffling through the phone.

“It was a team effort,” Juuse says, his voice a little bit empty. He knows that it sounds cutting, perhaps a reflection of his thoughts on Roman as a captain, but it stems from somewhere else. The dark, colder spot in his chest that sits at the base of his throat and squeezes whenever he does something wrong.

“Juuse-”

“Please make sure that Pekka gets some rest. He’s going to need it for tonight. Can I talk to him first, though?”

Roman just mumbles his soft assent, and soon Pekka’s back on the phone.

“Hey, Daddy. You’re going to do great tonight, okay? Get some rest and we can talk after our games.”

“Okay. I love you.”

Juuse smiles when he says, “I love you too.”

* * *

He’s not smiling when he lets in 5 goals. He’s frowning when he checks the Predators score, and sees that Pekka has done the same.

He texts Roman to see how Pekka’s doing, to see if he needed to call in. Roman tells him that Pekka’s finally starting to unwind, and that he should probably take care of his own emotions before he tried to soothe Pekka’s. He does it in a polite way, and that ticks Juuse off even more.

He doesn’t respond, and leaves his phone on the bedside table for tomorrow’s Juuse to deal with.

* * *

Tomorrow’s Juuse doesn’t appreciate being left with the residual, tired anger of past Juuse, but it helps him get through practice, so who is he to complain. The hotel that they’re staying in provides a little bit of the comforts of what he wanted, but he also had only packed for a one night’s stay with the Preds, and wasn’t ready for however long this was going to take. But they have four days between their rematches against the Monsters, and he’s going to take advantage of that.

He orders his ticket back home, takes a screenshot, and sends it to Pekka over text.

His phone rings shortly thereafter, and he can’t say that he’s surprised. When he answers, Pekka’s enthusiasm takes him by surprise.

“You’re coming back?” The question comes before any sort of greeting, and Juuse wasn’t ready.

“Not yet, love, not yet,” he says softly.

There’s silence on the other side of the line, and Juuse can tell through the static that Pekka is caught in a loop of chastising himself for getting so far ahead, and maybe being too needy for Juuse’s taste. This would be the time that Juuse would pet him and tell him that he’s doing just fine, that it’s okay to be excited over things and people. But he’s far away, and he can’t.

“It’s okay, though! It’s okay, I’m coming home on the 19th,” he explains. “It’s…I need more stuff, I only packed for one day, but. I could be back home for a little bit, if you…”

“I…we have a game on the 20th, but after that, we could…maybe….”

“Okay! Okay, we can…we’ll see each other, then.”

There’s a moment of silence, between the two of them, and then Pekka murmurs softly, “I still miss you.”

“I miss you too, Daddy. But we’ll see each other soon, I promise. I have one game on the 18th, and then I’ll be back and we can spend some time together.”

“Okay. Love you, Juuse.”

“Love you too, Pekka.”

The call ends when Juuse’s being called to practice, but he holds onto the serenity that calling Pekka had given him. They both had had rough games, and maybe the time apart wouldn’t be so bad. And in the future, maybe once he got his skates under him and could perform at the level that he _knew_ he could perform at, the level that had taken him through playoffs, he could come back to Nashville and prove that he deserved to be there. Until that day came, he tried to tell himself that he didn’t mind the work that was required to get back.

He just hoped they could hold on until then.

**Author's Note:**

> and then juuse gets another loss and pekka gets a win and here we are, in a world of hurt. but hopefully he is going to get better, and will come back and be able to play the way we all know he can. 
> 
> hmu on [tumblr](https://eddieluongo.tumblr.com/) if you want to request anything or something


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